All by the way variations on dissolving all boundaries but its own, that is to include or become included to what is being identified with.

Luce Irigaray wrote:"There is only one sex, the masculine, that elaborates itself in and through the production of the Other".

Some Jean Baudrillard:

This femininity, the eternal irony of the community. - Hegel

Femininity as a principle of uncertainty. It causes the sexual poles to waver. It is not the pole opposed to masculinity, but what abolishes the differential opposition, and thus sexuality itself ...

All masculine power is a power to produce. All that is produced, be it the production of woman as female, falls within the register of masculine power. The only, and irresistible, power of femininity is the inverse power of seduction. In itself it is nul, seduction has no power of its own, only that of annulling the power of production.

... the claim is that in this society femininity is naught but the signs with which men rig it up. ... Here femininity is said to have no being (no nature, writing, singular pleasures or, as Freud said, particularized libido). Contrary to every search for an authentic femininity, for a woman's speech, etc., the claim here is the female is nothing, and that this is her strength.

For Pye...

The opposite hypothesis is just as plausible and, from a certain perspective, more interesting - that is, that the feminine has never been dominated, but has always been dominant. The feminine considered not as a sex, but as the form transversal to every sex, as well as to every power, as the secret, virulent form of in-sexuality. The feminine as a challenge whose devastation can be experienced today throughout the entire expanse of sexuality. And hasn't this challenge, which is also that of seduction, always been triumphant? In this sense, the masculine has always been but a residual, secondary and fragile formation, one that must be defended by retrenchments, institutions, and artifices. The phallic fortress offers all the signs of a fortress, that is to say, of weakness. It can defend itself only from the ramparts of a manifest sexuality, of a finality of sex that exhausts itself in reproduction, or in the orgasm.

Femininity in this sense is on the same side as madness. It is because madness secretly prevails that it must be normalized (thanks to, amongst other things, the hypothesis of the unconscious). It is because femininity secretly prevails that it must be recycled and normalized (in sexual liberation in particular).

Diebert, as I mentioned to Sue, I have no problem with the notion of nothingness beneath femininity, as I am inclined to existential notions about what humans are anyway: no nature; only condition. That which is natural to us operates without our concern. That which we define as our humanity, though - the transcendent - concerns us very much, because it is our construct, our conscious creation. Clearly, senses of self are not part of this naturalness, for we have to work, create to define them - struggle, suffer with them at the forefront of consciousness. It is 'natural' in this sense to construct them (if we are in non-feral, 'civilized' conditions) but they are not natural in the sense of pre-written destinies.

It's in this sense alone that women would need to go about this conscious construction, just as men have done all along (I have never disagreed with the notion here that women need to become more conscious. This is so they can go about more alert self-creation instead of hosting off of males who have done this for them.) Some of the puffed-up quotes you provide are evidence of this praxis. In short, I have no problem with 'nothingness' beneath the human being. Long studies into feral children have taught me this well. All those things we call self, identity, humanity, notions of masculine, feminine qualities, etc. (outside of plain old sex-parts, i.e. nature - we cannot will those to change or disappear as we can and do with aspects of our sense of self) - those are our transcendent creations and have no other grounding than in the presence and fact of individual consciousness itself. In light of that, many can and ought to discuss what they mean by these things. That's the work of the conscious human; ideas created about themselves.

Anyway, I just stopped in to explain the upcoming absence for awhile and to beg pardon from anyone who waits for response. My work week began today and I have two new course preparations I have to have fully baked by Jan. 4. Then it's off to the races for another semester. I hope at least to read here in moments of free time.

Pye, the problem with your line of thought for me is that it expresses desire for conscious creation of a 'sense of self' and such constructions but it doesn't address how it is that the feminine not only lacks the capacity but keeps on ending up as the anti-thesis to it. That is: opposing, sabotaging, undoing as main modus operandi and "power inversion". And all this very closely integrated into a gender role over centuries, no, millennia, kept alive by culture and a collection of twisted and bent instincts, all to uphold some social structure. A structure which I do not regard as specifically masculine, it's more a balance of many forces at work that reached some equilibrium.

It's all good and well to shift the discussion to a universal human being and ideas emanating from it, but it's a futile attempt, a pipe-dream if one not more clearly maps the forces at work upon so far and dismantles the mistakes that have been hardly addressed in society at large. Women and with them modern societies are increasingly reaching for a grand, dangerous illusion while the men keep on being divided and misguided in serving that purpose, with the difference between sexes and the whole production both gliding away.

Dangerous only for those who have something to lose, of course, which are normally the ones having the illusion.

The above qualities are often ascribed to the feminine or listed as strong points of the average woman. But is it accurate?

For example a mother reacts emotionally to a perceived need of a crying child. She runs over, comforts it and asks what's the matter. Women are more sensitive to the sound of crying through evolution but does she have any specific skill in reading the need of the child or deciding what's best for it by empathetic or instinctual means? Would a father behave in less caring or effective ways?

While she is wired for concern and protection of the mother-child support structure - an all-inclusive intimate affair, does this mean she's also "wired", culturally or genetically, specifically for sensing thoughts and needs of the child or any other person in her world? My observation tells me the feminine advantages are illusive in the example above.

Inexperienced parents often are both at a loss grasping the needs of their child. The main difference I witness is a greater emotional response from the mother, she's clearly greater affected by whines as well the charms of a child. But this emotion rarely seems to lead to better decisions apart from the few moments smothering protection actually does protect the child from harm - something increasingly rare in this society.

There are other qualities from the list above I could question on their actual existence, like:

unconditional love: a woman's love is actually loaded with agenda and weighing factors, often hardly known to herself while the man's agenda doesn't reach very far at all and is hardly concealed.

sensuality and erotic romance: why not call it forms of narcissism and relief of their endless build-up of stress caused by constant emotional flux? Like a massage before and after boxing matches.

social grace: mostly experience by being immersed in the social most of her life. A social man appears to have just as much grace and subtlety.

non-competitive: a combination of lack of experience in competitive environments or places where achievements count and the hiding of fierce inter-woman competition, compared to which the average group of men look like long-lost brothers.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Pye, the problem with your line of thought for me is that it expresses desire for conscious creation of a 'sense of self' and such constructions but it doesn't address how it is that the feminine not only lacks the capacity but keeps on ending up as the anti-thesis to it. That is: opposing, sabotaging, undoing as main modus operandi and "power inversion". And all this very closely integrated into a gender role over centuries, no, millennia, kept alive by culture and a collection of twisted and bent instincts, all to uphold some social structure. A structure which I do not regard as specifically masculine, it's more a balance of many forces at work that reached some equilibrium.

It's all good and well to shift the discussion to a universal human being and ideas emanating from it, but it's a futile attempt, a pipe-dream if one not more clearly maps the forces at work upon so far and dismantles the mistakes that have been hardly addressed in society at large. Women and with them modern societies are increasingly reaching for a grand, dangerous illusion while the men keep on being divided and misguided in serving that purpose, with the difference between sexes and the whole production both gliding away.

Dangerous only for those who have something to lose, of course, which are normally the ones having the illusion.

From a male point of view, the ground of being is somewhat puzzling. Females have a better 'view' of the ground, though neither have an all-encompassing understanding. Everyone operates unconsciously from their 'identity,' unless they identify with something real or actual.

The "illusion" is simply the loss of power as we acclimate to a world where power is held over you instead of 'by us.' Men and women react differently to this loss. Men identify with an ideal of power and attempt to act from this ideal. This would be to create safety where 'outside' forces can create havoc or cause "unwanted" death. Women identify with a 'collective unit' and try to manipulate the environment to conform to the ideal of their collective, their source of safety. The way 'out' is to be a power within yourself and not rely on any collective to hold power. This creates a tangible transformation of experience, though one that requires an effort of discipline to undo the effects of the respective gender strategy. The effort becomes automatic, so as to be an obvious factor of [Love].

divine focus wrote:From a male point of view, the ground of being is somewhat puzzling. Females have a better 'view' of the ground, though neither have an all-encompassing understanding.

The "male point of view" includes, in an ideal sense, all potential forms of puzzling, viewing and understanding. There's no "female" counterpart to this anywhere. What I tried to clarify with the material I posted above is that the feminine mindset attempts to undo the puzzle, the view as well as the understanding: by flipping over the board, wanting to be seen as opposed to looking and drifting on a sense of mystery instead of desiring to truly, ruthlessly understand.

The "illusion" is simply the loss of power as we acclimate to a world where power is held over you instead of 'by us.'

Power is the way of the world. Or the way we perceive the world. It's not so terribly interesting who we think is holding it and who is not as it appears to be exchanged constantly.

Men identify with an ideal of power and attempt to act from this ideal. This would be to create safety where 'outside' forces can create havoc or cause "unwanted" death. Women identify with a 'collective unit' and try to manipulate the environment to conform to the ideal of their collective, their source of safety.

The pattern you describe is clearly visible in the history of social development. One could wonder about what these deeply cultured identities are having for effect on ones capacity to lay any importance on truth, courage, logic, honesty etc. One could wonder how this 'manipulation' and need for 'safety' would evolve in over time, especially in terms of resulting violence.

The way 'out' is to be a power within yourself and not rely on any collective to hold power. This creates a tangible transformation of experience, though one that requires an effort of discipline to undo the effects of the respective gender strategy.

It's not as simple as escaping the gender game. What I argued about above is that this very escape, the wavering of the sexual poles, this increasing uncertainty of identity lies in the realm, as result, of the feminine.

What if many biological females only have what GF considers femininity. What if most females beyond that really don't have quite the capacity that men have. There would be exceptions, but there would be far more women who thought that they were exception than actually were exceptions. What if they threw away any scrap of femininity that they could in pursuit of a higher ideal that they could not reach.

They would then have lost any value they would have previously had to men as far as attractiveness or escape from the grind of reality - a vacation for men of sorts, just by being. They would not have had much value to other women to begin with, but what value they had would mostly, if not completely, be lost as well.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The "male point of view" includes, in an ideal sense, all potential forms of puzzling,

Which is why women of olden days strove to maintain mystery about them. It was part of women making themselves useful to men, by being interesting despite being holed up in a house cleaning all day. How interesting could a person with that as a life possibly be? Not very - so she would be not very interesting to a man either.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Power is the way of the world. Or the way we perceive the world.

And women's strongest power is femininity. Masculine ideals may be more valuable by many measuring sticks, but if all women have some power from some aspects of femininity, just as all men have some power from at least some aspects of masculinity, then isn't it wrong to encourage women to give up femininity in pursuit of masculine ideals? I believe that it is. Men do not similarly have to give up their inherent masculine power in pursuit of masculinity, and women should not give up what little they have either.

If logic and reason are encouraged without stripping a woman of what power she does have in the world, the worst of femininity's traits would still fall off first, naturally. If anything, a woman should be encouraged to hold on to her femininity until she doesn't need it anymore because the reality is that women are not going to become men, and there is a big chance that she is going to need her femininity more than she could possibly realize. Once it's gone, if she is not able to attain her goal, she may find herself to be nothing more than a rejected old hag. Indeed that's similar to the chance that a man may think that he takes by pursuing a non-material lifestyle, but women actually accept far less than what men think they would, and when it comes to accepting females, men are usually far more shallow than even the most misandric feminist may suspect.

Women need a totally different path, one that allows femininity but also encourages women to outgrow irresponsible girlishness. Feminism robbed females of the definition of what a woman is, just as feminism robbed males of a definition of what a man is. Girls and boys have no idea what to grow into. Two things are for sure - girls have no business trying to grow into men when that is not what they are, and boys shouldn't be forced to grow into women when that is not what they are.

Feminism was an interesting social experiment - take everyone's roles away and see what happens; find out what men and women are really made of. It turns out that women can be more than what men thought they were capable of - and that's to the benefit of both men and women. But enough is enough. It's time to shut down the experiment and apply what we learned. Both genders are going to have to suck it up a little - men to admit that women could become more, and females to admit that women are not the all-mighty goddesses that they thought they were. It's time to recognize the real value of both, because only by assigning honest value can people stop trying to be a bad version of something they were not designed to be out of shame for not being something they were never meant to be. Only then can we all be at our best.

It is a story-line, continuously rehearsed and revised in an attempt to nail down thought (a movement). Self cannot exist without the continuity of its scripts. Whether one identifies with (relates to) one identity (gender in this case) or reacts against it (the opposite of what it does not identify with), that type of thinking fortifies Self. It is self. Separation. Duality. Not ALL. False.

Gender thinking is a form of Attachment to Delusion. Absorption in Illusion.

Do not let go of that identification if it makes your you tick. Attachment to identification is the experience (the memory) of Self. Without it, a type of perceptual death will begin. One in which fear dissipates. It is difficult to live without the essence of Self, which is the fear that comes from not yielding/surrendering to change and wanting to know where it will go and where it will take one's self.

The 'consciousness' or concept of femininity or masculinity is a delusion (a lie).

pointexter wrote:Gender thinking is a form of Attachment to Delusion. Absorption in Illusion.

That depends on where we go with it. The fact is that we are housed in bodies - male, female, or some combination of the two. It seems that the behaviors of the males and the behaviors of the females are generalizable with some degree of accuracy.

Our Ultimate Selves are nondualistic, but until/unless we get there, it is more practical over the lifespan to recognize the truth of what we are, whatever that may be. We must be careful not to cling - that would be attachment. We are born into the illusion, and the illusion is part of reality - it is just not part of Ultimate Reality.[

quote="pointexter"]Without it, a type of perceptual death will begin. One in which fear dissipates. It is difficult to live without the essence of Self, which is the fear that comes from not yielding/surrendering to change and wanting to know where it will go and where it will take one's self. [/quote]

That can happen, but not only does it not happen to everybody - things can happen to make it un-happen in an individual. It is hard enough for a man with his stable hormonal levels to achieve such a state - imagine how much more difficult for a pre-menopausal woman to get there, and keep it there despite hormone levels that alter throughout the month. It's a bit ridiculous to only be enlightened on the 8th through the 15th, and again on the 23rd though the 26th.

pointexter wrote:The 'consciousness' or concept of femininity or masculinity is a delusion (a lie).

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:It seems that the behaviors of the males and the behaviors of the females

This is a function of false linking up. There's no no difference between anything, save the thought. That is Totality. No boundary.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Our Ultimate Selves are nondualistic, but until/unless we get there, it is more practical over the lifespan to recognize the truth of what we are, whatever that may be. We must be careful not to cling - that would be attachment. We are born into the illusion, and the illusion is part of reality - it is just not part of Ultimate Reality.

WE? How many of your you and my me are there? There is no birth, that is boundary, measurement, Maya, Illusion. There is no Ultimate Self. Self is measurement. Ultimate is immeasurable.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:That can happen, but not only does it not happen to everybody - things can happen to make it un-happen in an individual.

There is no individual. That is measurement. l can not know whats happening here let alone to everybody. Knowledge = Memory = Clinging to thought. Thought points at transience or movement. It only 'knows' itself, which is illusion of measurement (separation).

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:It is hard enough for a man with his stable hormonal levels to achieve such a state - imagine how much more difficult for a pre-menopausal woman to get there, and keep it there despite hormone levels that alter throughout the month.

Dont make images about it. Its simple. Dont imagine how difficult it is to deal with continuously fluctuating thoughtful reaction to sensation. There is nowhere to get. Nothing to keep. No there, there.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:It's a bit ridiculous to only be enlightened on the 8th through the 15th, and again on the 23rd though the 26th.

Self thrives on ridicule. That only feeds it. There is no enlightened be-ing here. No been, being, will be. There is only This and This is All there is. Interpretation, no interpret-er. Thought, no think-er. There is nothing to see. No veil to lift. No clarity to find. No light to enlighten. There are thoughts bouncing around an empty echo chamber, reacting to inputs, delayed, filtered, repeating. There is not even emptiness. That is another 'thing' therefore not what it points at.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Again, it is part of reality, but not a part of Ultimate Reality.

All is not apart, therefore no parts. Totality has no parts, as parts arise out of separation, measurement. l cannot say if there is order or chaos. Patterns or randomness. l have found no blueprints, no models, no exact copies. That is how it appears, how l see (interpret) it, but not necessarily what l am looking at. l cannot tell if there is consistent linking out there or whether thought links events up consistently to attain certainty of thought.

Thought is like a computer, a machine, robot-like, unimportant (except to Self). Used to dress up facades of falsehood to escape one's fear of what is. An in-finite (read: un-defined and undefinable). Against which the falsehoods of self-identity and personal narrative pale in comparison. The thoughts about self are used to 'feel' something in a physiological sense. That something felt is the thought of the think-er. Illusion. The thought of the thinker or self-identification is memory. All past. All dead in a sense. To feel ones self in one's self identified thought is be in and of the past. A sort of wakeful death. Fear of This. This is ALL there IS.

It is a story-line, continuously rehearsed and revised in an attempt to nail down thought (a movement). Self cannot exist without the continuity of its scripts. Whether one identifies with (relates to) one identity (gender in this case) or reacts against it (the opposite of what it does not identify with), that type of thinking fortifies Self. It is self. Separation. Duality. Not ALL. False.

Gender thinking is a form of Attachment to Delusion. Absorption in Illusion.

Do not let go of that identification if it makes your you tick. Attachment to identification is the experience (the memory) of Self. Without it, a type of perceptual death will begin. One in which fear dissipates. It is difficult to live without the essence of Self, which is the fear that comes from not yielding/surrendering to change and wanting to know where it will go and where it will take one's self.

The 'consciousness' or concept of femininity or masculinity is a delusion (a lie).

Yet another person who confuses truth (which is non-dual in nature) with the path to truth (which is dualistic in nature and can only be navigated by high-level masculine consciousness).

Mount Everest is neither human nor reptile, but this doesn't mean that humans and reptiles have the same capacity to reach its summit.

Attacking a construct of language necessary to communicate a point indicates a level of pettiness found in those who only want to argue for argument's sake - not to get to the bottom of anything. I have better things to do than to just argue for argument's sake.

The rest of your post is similarly either intentionally obtuse or indicative of someone who has been taught the words of wisdom but not actually thought for himself. There isn't a point in arguing with such an ego.

As David said, you are confusing the path and the Truth.

Jeannie wrote:pmsl(...)You think you have less "emotions" than a woman..think again guys...and "wanna be guys"

Did you even read my first post on this thread? Or just cherry-pick what you thought you could make fun of if taken out of context and re-labeled?

Diebert: The "male point of view" includes, in an ideal sense, all potential forms of puzzling, viewing and understanding. There's no "female" counterpart to this anywhere. What I tried to clarify with the material I posted above is that the feminine mindset attempts to undo the puzzle, the view as well as the understanding: by flipping over the board, wanting to be seen as opposed to looking and drifting on a sense of mystery instead of desiring to truly, ruthlessly understand.

It is true for those with the feminine mindset that consciousness is viewed as being a mystery, and that in order to overcome this drifting, 'she' must desire to truly, ruthlessly understand, but what I put forward is that when logic is ruthlessly applied so that 'she' does indeed understand, that the application of logic must then be dropped. Is it not logical to drop the means when its purpose has been served? Does a man stay in the boat when the shore has been reached?

What replaces the seeking method of logic to understand once understanding has been reached? Obedience to what has been understood.